Oregon Ranchers Pardoned Pt 2
I'm Bob Larson. The President pardon of a father-son team of Eastern Oregon ranchers is a great depiction of how out of touch and unresponsive our federal government can be.That's the word from U.S. Representative Dan Newhouse who says Steven and Dwight Hammond were trying to protect their own land from a wildfire when they set a backburn ...
NEWHOUSE ... "If you look at some of the incidences of our federal firefighters doing the same thing, fires can be unpredictable and they sometimes get out of hand when federal government utilizes those techniques."
Newhouse says President Trump did the right thing ...
NEWHOUSE ... "I'm very happy to see that the President pardoned these individuals. They were sentenced incorrectly. It was an excessive sentence for the act that they committed."
Newhouse says the judiciary couldn't agree either ...
NEWHOUSE ... "Even the federal judge who originally had only sentenced them to three months stated any longer than three months would be a shock to the conscience. But, we had federal prosecutors that thought otherwise and they appealed and succeeded in getting this five-year sentence which I thought was totally unreasonable. So, I'm glad to see that the President agreed with that."
The Hammond's return to prison in 2016 set off a protest leading to the armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns.
The Hammond's were released and returned home last week to relieved friends and family.